Purposes/ ‘wants’ and the Contribution of Meaning centred

and Existential therapies

Mick CooperUniversity of Roehampton

mick.cooper@roehampton.ac.uk

The Tree of Desires

Existential and meaning-oriented approaches rooted in teleology

As human beings, we are not machines that arecaused to do things. We are human agencies thatdo things for reasons: to achieve the purposes,goals and meanings that we set out for ourselves

(Source: Cooper, 2017)

Source of wants can be:

• Physical• Psychological• Social• Spiritual

(and generally complex integration of more than one)

Photo: Daniel Sousa

Wants can range from…Immediate short term

desires

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Long term objectives

Wants can be…Intrinsic vs Extrinsic wants

• Desires may be for intrinsic self-fulfilment, or to impress/comply with others

• Cf. ‘ideal’ vs ‘ought’ goals, learning vs. performance goals Ju5tm

3l1554on Deviantart.com

(Source: Sheldon & Kasser, 1998)

Wants can be:

Consciousor

Un-conscious

(Source: Bargh, 2004)

Conscious vs Unconscious goals

• Research indicates that goals can operate at unconscious level

• For instance, subliminal exposure to cooperative words led to more cooperation in task

(Source: Bargh, 2004)

The human brain cannot sustain purposeless living. It is not designed for that. It’s systems are designed for purposive action. When that is blocked, its systems deteriorate, and the emotional feedback from idling these systems signals extreme discomfort and motivates the search for renewed purpose, renewed meaning. (Klinger, 2013, p.13)

Wants and WellbeingPresence Absence

Orientation to wants

Meaning, purpose, sense of direction, orientation, order

Meaninglessness, disorientation, chaos, directionlessness, despair

Perceived attainability of wants

Hope, optimism, control, order, excitement, expectation

Hopelessness, futility

Progress/velocity towards wants

Accomplishment, excitement, self-belief, expectation, control

Frustration, failure, despair, disillusionment, lack of self-belief, anger

Attainment of wants

Satisfaction, accomplishment, fulfilment; experiencing of desired state per se

Dissatisfaction, failure, sadness, loss, frustration, envy, anger

(Source: Austin & Vancouver, 1996; Caspar, 1995; Emmons & Diener, 1986; Koestner et al., 2002)

When affects, themselves, are wants, creates potential for vicious and

virtuous cycles

‘I’m not as happy as I “should” be’

DisappointmentFrustration

The unique contribution of

meaning-centred and existential

therapies

1. Contributes a philosophical depth

and richness to teleological models

Human being as agentic

‘Man, first of all, is the being who hurls himself towards a future and who is conscious of imagining himself as being in the future.’- Jean-Paul Sartre (1996)

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2. Foregrounding

the highest order wants

Meaning

Creativity

Music

Join music group

Contributing to

communityFaith

Keeping in mind what a client is ultimately aiming for, not just how they might go there

3. Recognises that highest order wants

may be values/ethical – not necessarily

biological or psychological needs

Meaning

Creativity

Music

Join music group

Contributing to

communityFaith

Highest order wants may be value-based

… and therefore can be found in any situation.

Recon-figuration of purposes is always possible

4. Recognises that highest order wants may be individual

rather than universal

Meaning

Creativity

Music

Join music group

Contributing to

communityFaith

Highest order wants may be individual

‘For as the needle of the magnet has chosen from all the points of the compass north…so the soul from the beginning has chosen its direction.’ (Buber, 1964)

… and perhaps given as our destinies

5. Recognises the value of actualising

meanings as well as purposes

Meaning

Creativity Contributing to community

Have been a good friend to neighbours

Have been a reliable, consistent,

bedrock of the community

Faith

Actualising meanings

6. Recognises that a lack of purpose (and not just conflict, or ineffectiveness) can

cause distress

Meaning

Creativity Contributing to community

Have been a good friend to neighbours

Have been a reliable, consistent,

bedrock of the community

Faith

Lack of wants can cause distress

7. Development of therapeutic methods for

facilitating the identification of

purposes

Meaning-centred methods• Existential attribution (Wong, 1998): Asking ‘Why?’

questions that help clients track back to their most fundamental meanings and purposes. For instance, ‘Why is it important for you to relate to people on an equal plane?’

• Fast-forwarding (Wong, 1998): Asking clients to depict likely future scenarios given a particular choice. For instance, ‘How do you imagine your life would be if you left your husband and children?’

• Magical thinking (Wong, 1998): Asking clients questions that help them transcend their present situation and consider new possibilities. For instance, ‘If you could do whatever you wanted right now, what would it be?’

• The movies exercise (Schulenberg et al., 2008): Inviting clients to develop a film of their life, focusing from the past to their present life, and then from their present to their future.

8. The inevitability of

existential despair

Nothing here

Meaning

Autonomy Relatedness Competence Physical pleasure

There is no ultimate meaning

The importance of social factors in actualising

wants

The extent to which people actualise their wants is not internally-determined alone, but fundamentally shaped by their external, socio-political circumstances

Our external environment shapes: - The extent to which our wants are attainable- The effectiveness of our methods- The extent to which our wants are dysergetic

or synergetic

Financially supportive environment

Financialsecurity

Financially restrictive environment

financialsecurity

Unconditionally accepting environment

‘self’

Conditionally accepting environment

‘self’

Social changeHelping people actualise their wants may require social and political change, as well as psychological

Contributions to meaning-centred

practices

Contribution to meaning-centred practices

1. Developing an understanding of the psychology of purposes, and their relation to wellbeing

2. Recognising that lack of purpose is one of several related problems – inability to actualise it, or conflicts between purposes, can cause problems too

3. Capacity of multiple methods to help people identify, and actualise, purposes –including social change: an integrative/pluralistic therapy

Key references• Austin, J. T., & Vancouver, J. B. (1996). Goal constructs in psychology: Structure, process, and content. Psychological Bulletin,

120(3), 338-375. • Bargh, J. A. (2004). Being here now: Is consciousness necessary for human freedom? In J. Greenberg, S. L. Koole & T. Pyszczynski

(Eds.), Handbook of experimental existential psychology (pp. 385-397). New York: Guilford.• Buber, M. (1964). Daniel: Dialogues on realisation (M. Friedman, Trans.). NY: Holt, Reinhart and Winston.• Caspar, F. (1995). Plan Analysis, Berne: Hogrefe .• Cooper, M. (2005). Therapists' experiences of relational depth: A qualitative interview study. Counselling and Psychotherapy

Research, 5(2), 87-95. • Cooper, M. (2012). A hierarchy of wants: Towards an integrative framework for counselling, psychotherapy and social change.

University of Strathclyde. Glasgow. Retrieved from download from pure.strath.ac.uk/portal• Cooper, M. (2017). Existential Therapies (2nd ed.). London: Sage.• Elliot, A. J., & Church, M. A. (2002). Client articulated avoidance goals in the therapy context. Journal of Counseling Psychology,

49(2), 243-254. • Emmons, R. A. (1986). Personal strivings: An approach to personality and subjective well-being. Journal of Personality and Social

Psychology, 51(5), 1058-1068• Emmons, R. A., & Diener, E. (1986). A goal-affect analysis of everyday situational choices. Journal of Research in Personality, 20(3),

309-326. • Kelly, R. E., Mansell, W., & Wood, A. M. (2015). Goal conflict and well-being: A review and hierarchical model of goal conflict,

ambivalence, self-discrepancy and self-concordance. Personality and Individual Differences, 85, 212-229. • Klinger, E. (2013). The search for meaning in evolutionary goal-theory perspective and its clinical implications. In P. T. P. Wong

(Ed.), The human quest for meaning: Theories, research, and applications (2nd ed., pp. 23-56). New York: Routledge.• Koestner, R., Lekes, N., Powers, T. A., & Chicoine, E. (2002). Attaining personal goals: Self-concordance plus implementation

intentions equals success. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83(1), 231-244. Little, K. Salmela-Aro & S. D. Phillips (Eds.), Personal project pursuit: Goals, action, and human flourishing. (pp. 97-118). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers.

• Locke, E. A., & Latham, G. P. (2002). Building a practically useful theory of goal setting and task motivation - A 35-year odyssey. American Psychologist, 57(9), 705-717

• Sartre, J.-P. (1996). Existentialism. In L. Cahoone (Ed.), From Modernism to Postmodernism: An Anthology (pp. 259-265). Cambridge, MA: Blackwells Publishers Ltd.

• Schulenberg, S. E., Hutzell, R. R., Nassif, C., & Rogina, J. M. (2008). Logotherapy for clinical practice. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training, 45(4), 447-463.

• Sheldon, K. M., & Kasser, T. (1998). Pursuing Personal Goals: Skills Enable Progress, but Not all Progress is Beneficial. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 24(12), 1319-1331.

• Wong, P. T. P. (1998). Meaning-centred counseling. In P. T. Wong & P. Fry (Eds.), The Quest for Human Meaning: A Handbook of Theory, Research and Application (pp. 395-435). Mahway, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Inc.